3 replies to this topic

[westcanuck]

Good Day,

Most of the supplements I buy have “branded” active ingredients or if not branded, are from companies I trust.

I recently inquired about a specific brand of bulk Grapeseed Extract (95%) and the supplier emailed me saying that they switched to a generic because good quality GSE use to be fairly rare but now that’s not the case and their generic one can provide material with a similar specification for about ½ the cost of the branded.

The COA I received was done by a lab in California. From my limited knowledge it looks fine (info provided includes: appearance, Assay, Case/Batch #, Batch Size, Shelf Life, Production Date, Raw Materials, etc). Country of Origin is China (no surprise).

Everything Conforms: Odor, Taste, Aflatoxins, Bulk Density, Mesh Size, E.Coli, Salmonella, Staphylococcus Aureus, Total Plate Count, Yeast/Mold, Arsenic, Cadmium, Heavy Metals, Hydrargyrum, Lead, Excipent.

Extract Solvent is Ethanol & Water (conforms) and from what I’ve read, this is a common extraction method.

So for those of you buying bulk powders, what do you look for in a COA? Is the fact that everything “conforms” good enough? The COA is testing the end product but what about what went on in the manufacturing such as low vs. high temperature extraction, the use of additional solvents/chemicals, etc.

FYI, I’m only going through this exercise because the price difference is pretty significant and the activie ingredient and standardized percentages are equivalent to many bottled brands I’ve looked at.

Thanks in advance for any input.

[chrono]

Is the COA from an independent lab, or from the manufacturer/distributor? If it tested for stuff like E coli and heavy metals, I'm assuming it's a real one.

COAs usually state a limit (for instance, 2ppm of a heavy metal), and "conforms" means that the amount present is below that detection threshold. Whether this is 'good enough' depends on what the impurity is, how much you'd be receiving with each dose, how often you'd be ingesting it, and so on. There's no guarantee that "conforms" means "safe," but it's a good start.

As you suspect, these criteria don't guarantee anything about the manufacturing process. Since GSE isn't a single target molecule, a simple assay can't say something like 99% purity, which would render the manufacturing processes somewhat less relevant. There's a certain element of faith in the reputation of who you're buying from, and their ability to judge how well the product was extracted. You could ask specifically about the extraction process and materials; a lot of people are able to specify this.

To be honest, there's a lot of unknowns involved in any such product. This includes "brand name" companies, which are quite capable of putting out surprisingly bad products in this largely unregulated market. But the fact that they took the time to get an independent analysis done puts them above most of the bulk powders companies you'll come across.

[westcanuck]

Thanks Chrono for your thorough reply,

My wife received two COAs from two companies. Neither BTW was an independant analysis but rather from the distributor (I take it this is the norm). The first COA was on the actual distributors letterhead received 15 minutes after requested.

The second company had some info on their website for each bulk they sold but it wasn't as detailed so she requested the full COA. I'm including the reply because I thought others might find it helpful information. It certainly answered some questions I had about the whole COA process. The reply was as follows:

"I'll do my best to answer your question regarding the COA. But first I will tell you that you have probably never seen a COA previously for any of the nutritional products you have purchased or consumed. Is that correct? The reason I mention this is because COA are performed in a manner that must comply with a given manufacturing standard, i.e. USP, EP, BP, HPLC, FCCIV, etc. These various standards specify how these COA are generated and which certified laboratories may perform these tests. Because COA are generated in compliance with certifying agencies such as the United States Pharmacopoeia your question is somewhat irrelevant. We are not a certified laboratory according to the US government and even if we were we couldn't generate COA and be in compliance with those standards. COAs are NEVER generated independently. If you are looking for independently generated COA you can stop looking because they don't exist and would violate numerous federal laws if they did.

The COAs you see published on our website are generated by accredited and certified laboratories commissioned by the manufacturer but certified (typically) by the US government. We typically don't know who manufacturers our products because we NEVER purchase our products directly from the manufacturers. We only purchase our products from known and trusted USA distributors, very large corporations that import these products. These USA distributors do not disclose the manufacturer to us but they do have the analytical laboratories necessary to independently test our products to ensure the purity and potency of those products where necessary."

BTW, my wife never requested an "independently generated" COA, just one with more complete info. There were some back and forth emails and he did follow-up with a COA but on his company's letterhead, not the distributors. He replied with:

"We actually almost never see COAs from the manufacturer. Currently we are ordering our products only from trusted USA distributors and importers that translate their COAs they receive from the manufacturer such that we don't even know who manufactures our products. But the trade off is worth it because our distributors, like DNP and Unichem and a couple others, have tremendous in-house laboratories that can perform independent laboratory analysis and testing when necessary to assure the purity and quality of the products we purchase from them. If we were to purchase our products directly from the manufacturers in China, Japan, Korea and India we could definitely pay a lot less and be a lot more profitable. But we'd lose the integrity of our supply chain in the process because there would be no significant oversight and quality control beyond our meager in-house field tests that we perform. We really do care enough about the quality of the products we purchase and resell that we never purchase our products directly from overseas manufacturers. We did do this about 8 years ago but after a few problems we decided that the cost savings wasn't worth the risk."

I havn't bought a generic bulk yet, only branded versions ... which I believe to be reputable and researched. I'm sure there are some lesser quality branded ones out there as you point out.

Maybe I just don't have the stomach for generics. I'm curious what thoughts others have on this.

[kurdishfella]

Is there ways to fake Certificate of Analysis? Any other certificates I should ask for? or questions. I asked a company that sells Vitamin Injections meant for animal use. But I feel like they fake those vitamins. And I asked them where they source it from or if they make it themselves. I feel like a lot of vitamins that are meant for animal use are being faked because you have no way to tell how the animal feels accurately and blood tests are limited and a lot of animals live on deficiencies used to it so you will notice no difference from what you know. You should be by law to have COA's done and provide it. And not legally but illegal to not do so by default fake, how hard can it be? One in Three Supplements Are Fake. DNA tests confirm that one-third are fake and many that are 'real' are poor quality. You can't even trust big companies let alone smaller ones.

Edited by kurdishfella, 11 May 2021 - 04:35 AM.